BatPeople

The Bat People (1974)

I’m pretty familiar with most of these cheesy drive-in flicks, but the Bat People was a new one to me. It isn’t very often that I get to check one of these out for the first time, so I was pretty excited. While vacationing with his new bride Dr. John Beck is bitten by a bat while in a cave. After having a few fits and getting sick he is treated for rabies. But it isn’t rabies that he has. Nope it seems that he turns into a half man half bat creature at night. Not only that but he kills people to drink their blood! He realizes that he is changing and escapes back to the caves, with a sheriff’s deputy, played by Michael Pataki, in hot pursuit. Is the doctor cured? Does he return to his wife? Is the deputy really that creepy of a dude?

No. No. Yes. There you go now you don’t have to waste your time on The Bat People. Man I was really disappointed in this movie. The movie had so much going for it. You have a genre legend like Michael Pataki chewing up the scenery and having fun. You have a crazy and silly premise that is perfect for this sort of drive-in fare. The creature (when we finally see it!) looks great and is an early bit of work from the master Stan Winston. Hell there is even a cool car chase towards the end of the movie. So what happened?

This is one of those movies that is killed by the script and direction. First of all the script makes a terrible mistake. It seems to think that the people in the movie are more interesting then the creature. We don’t get to see the creature until about 35 minutes into the movie, and then until the very end all we see is a hairy hand. Now if your creature looks bad then I can understand that. But the creature we see at the big finale looks fairly decent and compared to most movies of the ‘70s it holds up very well. When I sit my keister down on the couch to watch a flick called The Bat People I want to see some damn Bat People! What we get instead are long stretches of people skiing, walking, or chilling out in the hot tub. The doctor and his new wife are in love, I get it okay. Now give me some creature-fueled mayhem… Alas what we get is a very slow and boring flicks that picks up for a couple minutes here and there, but overall is painful to sit thru.

The one thing that I will give the movie props is the creature design. The effects are practical and is basically the actor running about in a mask and gloves (think the classic Woflman movies). I like the design of the creature and Winston pulls it off with some real skill. It is a damn shame that his work doesn’t get more screen time. I was also disappointed that the kills are so tame and basically all occur off screen.

After watching The Bat People I can see how I’ve missed it all these years. I’ll give the movie a star because of Winston’s work, but I can’t recommend it.

1 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer